Various oral hypoglycemic agents such as those described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,968,158 and 3,860,724 and British Pat. No. 887,886 are known to be effective in reducing blood sugar levels in warm-blooded animals and also to be useful in the treatment of diabetes. Moreover, so-called trace metals are known to be generally important in human and animal metabolism. For example, zinc is known to be associated with insulin and pancreatic beta cells contain unusually large amounts of zinc. Changes in zinc content and granulation of beta cells parallel one another and substances which compete with insulin for zinc may induce release of insulin. Finally, a complex of aspartic acid, a compound not known to be a hypoglycemic agent or to possess hypoglycemic activity, with trivalent rare earths and zinc has been unexpectedly found to depress the level of sugar in blood and urine as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,899,521.